Altoros Joins Smart Airline Baggage Management Testbed

Software developer Alteros has announced that it is participating in an RFID-enabled testbed for the airline industry. The Smart Airline Baggage Management Testbed, first announced in June 2016, will employ a range of RFID, Bluetooth, cellular and Wi-Fi baggage tags and baggage-tracking devices. These electronic tags will be deployed in smart tags, smart luggage, permanent and reusable bag tags, airport luggage carts and across the baggage ecosystem, the company reports.

The initiative aims to increase the ability of airlines to track baggage, preventing theft and loss. The testbed includes General Electric (GE), M2Mi and Oracle as lead members. The testbed, part of a broader aviation ecosystem vision, was formed within the non-profit Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC).

The system developed by the testbed participants is designed to track a bag from check-in to delivery using RFID tags and a range of wireless devices. The solution will associate luggage with passengers and flights, track baggage location through GPS in real time and generate alerts if, for example, a bag is located where it should not be, or if there is a weight change in a bag.

Alexey Khizhnyak, Altoros' director of technical evangelism, says his company's involvement centers on a prototype for the testbed that monitors the location of a bag that has an RFID tag on it. Altoros worked with GE to create the prototype, which uses GE's Predix application platform, made for building and operating apps for the Industrial Internet. The cloud-based Predix serves as the platform for the tracking system overall.

An app for the prototype can display data regarding a bag's location for airline personnel and for passengers, according to Khizhnyak. "In case the baggage is lost, or ready for collecting by a passenger at the destination airport," he says, "notifications are sent via SMS or e-mail."

Joining GE's and Altoros' efforts are Oracle, which will provide apps built on its Oracle Airline Data Model (OADM), Oracle BI and Oracle CX, as well as M2Mi, which will provide machine-to-machine and Internet of Things device management, data handling and in-stream analytics to connect edge devices to the platform apps.

According to Altoros, the testbed is also aimed at helping airlines address the new requirements set out by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) in Resolution 753, which requires that more comprehensive solutions for baggage handling be implemented by June 2018.

A demonstration of the system's components will be conducted in Spain on Oct. 24 during the Industrial Internet Forum Barcelona. Altoros will showcase its baggage-tracking prototype there as well, Khizhnyak says.